


so come out of your cave walking on your hands

by bluestoplights



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Murder, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4348555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestoplights/pseuds/bluestoplights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-finale oneshot | Emma has a lot of experience sitting alone in a cell. So, Emma waits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so come out of your cave walking on your hands

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Guess what I did instead of working on the next chapter of FE? Whoops. The idea just came to me and I couldn't get it out, so I hope you guys enjoy angst I guess? A lot of angst. A lot, a lot of angst. Honestly, you can't say I didn't warn you.
> 
> This fic takes place after 4x22 and is canon compliant if you disregard spoilers for season 5 entirely aside from like... one clip and two casting calls. I really wanted to explore what exactly would make Emma just completely snap and how she'd be able to deal with the fallout of that as well as dealing with the ~~~darkness period. I really feel like the Dark One Emma arc will end up disappointing me, though, because it'll be an easy trap to really glamorize the whole darkness thing (/cough/ as A&E looove doing /endcough/) instead of addressing the emotional trauma, etc. that I honestly find more compelling from a character analysis standpoint. 
> 
> I genuinely don't think Emma would go down without a hell of a fight and I hope this fic gives a general idea of what I'd imagine that limit and that fight to be like for her.
> 
> This fic really gets into the topic of depression without exactly saying the words and could definitely be triggering. There are also hints at suicidal themes that I really would caution readers before reading if that is something that's a trigger for you. There are also mentions of character death, but I'd be spoiling if I gave it away. Basically, if you get pissed off at this fic - keep reading! 
> 
> Also, THANK YOU TO ELLA (ellasaidlumos) FOR BETAING THIS FOR ME. You guys have no idea what a mess this fic would be if she didn't.  
> So, on that note... enjoy!?

Emma still feels like herself, at first.

One minute she was looking at her family, the next she’s in a cave. It’s far from ideal, but Emma thinks it could be much worse. She’s still her, she thinks, aside from the weird leather outfit that would be more well-suited for her boyfriend than her. Emma can feel something foreign weighing on her, but she has faith that she’ll be able to get herself out of this mess and get back to the people she loves. She’s even surprised to discover that she _knows_ where she is.

It’s the cell that Rumplestiltskin was locked in before the curse. The cell Cora locked her and her merry band of princesses into over a year ago. And yes, the cell that Killian told her he was done with her in. The declaration didn’t work well for him, it seems.

She at least knows where she is, but there are no hidden scrolls with her name scrawled on them to get her out of it this time. Emma is stuck with no means of getting out. That may be for the best, anyway. Here, she can’t hurt anybody.

Emma has a lot of experience sitting alone in a cell. So, Emma waits.

Hours turn into days and days turn into months. Emma may have dropped out of high school, but she has a general idea about circadian rhythms and listened to Mary Margaret’s hasty explanations of sundials when they were dropped in the Enchanted Forest. She doesn’t get much sunlight where she is, but Emma marks the days that pass on the wall, an idea she’s decided to steal from Neal, and tells herself that every mark she makes is one day closer to them finding her.

The days continue to pass. Are they looking for a bean or do they know to use the door? Did the door still work? Would it even lead them to where she was? Just because Anna had met David and Belle by a trip from Arendelle didn’t necessarily mean it’d be easy to get there. Emma’s mind races through every scenario, but they all end in the same result. The people she loves come through that door and get her out of here.

Emma Swan was the only one who saved herself, but she feels that woman slipping away every day she’s in this cell.

She doesn’t eat, doesn’t need to thanks to the benefits of immortality. She feels the ache of the hunger, though, along with the pressure of thirst and the despair and loneliness that come with spending such a long time alone. The days blend together, then blend together even more. She still marks the days, though. On a lot of days, it’s the only thing she does.

Emma is sure she’s going absolutely insane, as she’s been sure of for who knows how long now. The marks are practically filling up the entire cave wall, now. Emma thinks she should count them, just to see. She thinks about it again and decides she doesn’t want to know. Emma hasn’t given up the hope of them finding her, but it gets harder every day.

It’s later that she decides she has to know.

The first count can’t be true and she curses the effect time has had on her brain. She counts the marks again, just to be sure. Emma was right the first time.

36,634

It’s been over a hundred years.

Emma made the marks, but willed herself not to think about them. Now, she doesn’t have a choice. They aren’t a sign of being a step closer to the people she loves finding her, not at all. All the marks do is signify how far away from them she really is. They aren’t coming. They’re all dead by now.

She rasps the words to herself over and over again, her voice almost non-existent from disuse.

Emma missed everything. She missed making up for the time she missed with her parents and watching her little brother grow up. She missed Killian and the life she should’ve gotten to have with him. She missed seeing Henry graduate, become an adult, get married maybe, and even missed his death.

She refuses to believe it. Emma missed seeing Henry take his first steps, missed growing up with her parents, and missed knowing what it was like to have a relationship that didn’t end in complete heartbreak. She couldn’t have missed everything else, too. The universe wasn’t that cruel.

So, Emma grieves for them. For weeks and months her thoughts are only on the people she loved and the people she would never get to see again.

Did they look for her until they died? Emma hopes they didn’t waste their lives on it, really. She hopes that they were able to move on. Emma hopes that her parents were able to focus on Neal without being crippled by the thought of their other child, that Henry was able to grow up without her just as well as he was able to grow up into a young boy before she came into town, and that Killian didn’t spend his last century angry and bitter like he was over the death of his first love.

Emma hopes and hopes and hopes. It’s probably the false kind - the most dangerous thing you can give someone, by Emma’s own admission. Still, she hopes.

Sometimes she thinks of the life she could have had if she didn’t take the darkness on for herself. She’d be dead by now, but she would’ve lived a full life. A happy life. Emma would have goaded Neal into saying her name as one of his first words, sent Henry off to college with both a bit of moisture in her eyes and reassurance that he’d be fine, and she would’ve had Killian at her side through all of it. Her parents would have seen her live her life happily (even though they’d probably go through a million monsters of the week) and she’d have a good life.

She didn’t get any of that and she’ll never get the chance to.

Slowly her thoughts turn more and more bitter. They must have given up on her pretty quickly if they weren’t able to find her in a place that they should know to look - given her parents trapped the first Dark One into it. Even if they didn’t, they could’ve done a locator spell. They had a portal.

She told them to save her. Emma told them to save her and they didn’t.

They just probably thought they’d be better off without a Dark One tearing their lives apart, anyway. Her magic couldn’t hurt anyone if she was locked away. Mary Margaret wouldn’t be afraid to hand one child off to another again. David and Killian wouldn’t have to duck from light poles. Her own son wouldn’t be injured by his mother. They were glad to see her go, glad to see a source of their misery and complications vanish in a crack of lightening and a spiral of darkness.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s years later that, for the first time in a long time, someone enters the cave. She tells herself that it can’t be them, it would be impossible for it to be them.

Emma is right, it isn’t. The intruder is just some misguided woman.

She has only held a heart once before, but that one - its owner insisted - belonged completely to her anyway. The one she’s holding now doesn’t. Emma doesn’t put it back, this time. She doesn’t even use the heart to demand the woman to get her out of here. Emma crushes it like it’s instinct to do so - an animalistic kill or be killed one. She only understands the impact of what she’s done when the shards of it sting her hand.

Once she realizes what she’s done she swears they’re better off dead. Not just the woman, who has done nothing wrong but try to help her, but they all are. David, Mary Margaret, Killian, Henry...they’re all better off being in their graves before they see her become like this. Even if they willfully abandoned her (and who could blame them if they did?)  they deserved better than to see her become this.

A few more weeks pass by before any more people try to bother her. She should be itching to get out, but all she feels is empty. Not even angry, just empty. She just wants it all to end, the tedious monotony of a half-life. The funny thing about immortality is that she’ll never be able to bring it to a conclusion.

When she hears multiple footsteps, she doesn’t even bother to turn around from her position with her back against the bars. They’ll learn their lesson if they bug her, anyway.

“Mom?” she hears a familiar voice call.

She turns around in shock to see the people that she’s been desperate to see since she’s been in this cell. David and Mary Margaret have their arms wrapped around each other, almost knocking each other over in relief. Hook has his hand on Henry’s shoulder and they both look like they’ve seen a miracle.

They’re not them, though. It’s a trick. It has to be.

Two (or five) could play at that game.

“The whole gang, huh?” she goads at the invaders standing with her hands wrapped around the bars, not believing the delusion for a second. She knows better.

“Emma, you have no idea how happy we are to see you-” David starts, not even able to finish his sentence before Emma cuts him off.

“Nice try,” she grits out, voice still chalky from lack of use, “they’re all dead.”

They all look bewildered at her announcement.

“We’re not dead.” Mary Margaret points out, as if she’s stating the obvious.

It’s been so long since she’s even had the opportunity to spot a liar, she doesn’t even instinctually know if she’s telling the truth. Emma knows they have to be dead, though. They have to be. “Well, you’re about to be if you continue this little roleplay you’re putting on. You can join my friend here.”

Emma gestures to the dead woman on the ground and not-Henry looks horrified. Emma has to give it to whoever this wizard or witch is, they’re good actors. She’d almost believe them.

It’s then she notices the glint of metal on Not-Hook’s belt. He, regretfully almost, holds the dagger up to the light. All Emma can do is gape.

His voice is shaking when he asks her, “Would imposters have this, love?”

“It could be a fake,” Emma shrugs it off as if it doesn’t bother her in the slightest. Her family may have abandoned her, but she doesn’t think they’d resort to handing the dagger off to other people. It has to be a fake. “If it’s real, you’ll have to prove it.”

Not-Hook looks nervous at the prospect, as do the rest of them. Good. Let them be nervous that she’s about to expose them for frauds before she rips their hearts out for being cruel enough to pull this kind of stunt.

“Emma, love, please believe us.” Hook pleas.

It’s a command. It works.

She stills, her body trembling as she realizes what state she’s in and who is here to see her like this. Her parents don’t so much as flinch and she has to wonder how they don’t see her as the monster she is right now. Henry’s expression can only be described as determined. Hook is still looking at her, begging with her with his body language.

“Okay.” she manages.

All of them seem to sigh collectively in relief.

They get her out, using a bottle of squid ink they procured from who knows where. Her parents immediately tug her into their arms in the group hugs she used to feel at home in. Now, she just feels like a snake trying to worm its way back into its old skin, standing shock still and not reciprocating. Henry gives her a similar hug and she thinks to at least try to hug him back this time. It’s awkward and stiff, but she manages.

Hook, now with the dagger tucked back in his belt, seems to be able to tell from her body language that she’s not in the mood for a similar greeting from him. He only tells her, “I cannot put into words how elated I am so see you again, love.”

Emma almost responds in turn. She doesn’t. He does his best to act like silence is a normal response.

“Emma, I’m going to hand you the dagger…” Hook begins, clearly uncomfortable with holding the source of her autonomy in his hands. “just know that we have faith in you, love.”

Emma is holding it in her hands a second later. She still believes them, she thinks. They wouldn’t have handed the dagger over if they weren’t who they said they were. It’s just she isn’t sure that she is who they think she is. Her eyes linger on the body on the ground as they leave.

She pauses at the doorway, shoving the dagger into Hook’s hand when she sees it. He’s made his point. Deep down, despite the dark part of her taunting her otherwise, she knows that she can’t trust herself with it. That body is proof. Hook tries to protest, but the look on her face must silence his reply.

Lancelot, the real Lancelot, and a woman she doesn’t recognize greet them on their way out of the cell that has served as Emma’s home for who knows how long. Emma doesn't even bother asking how Lancelot is alive. They talk a lot, about how they figured out where she was and how it was an honor to finally meet her after hearing so many good things about her. She tunes them out. Tunes everything out, really, and it’s not until she gets to what is supposed to be home that she manages to really get back on any sort of wavelength.

 

* * *

 

 

Emma’s first thought when she walks into the loft, still disconnected from everything and everyone, is how ridiculous she looks when she meets her own reflection in a mirror. Her skin is as white as the fairytale made her mother’s out to be, her lips are painted red (how this came to be she isn’t sure - it’s not as if she had lipstick in a cave). Her parents, her son, and her boyfriend loiter carefully behind her.

“How long…” she manages, breath catching from a pressure she won’t identify. “how long have I been gone?”

David is the first to answer the question. “It’s been six months, honey. It’s been such a long time since we’ve seen you. We’ve been so worried…”

Months. She was gone for months. Not years. Not a century. Just six months.

Emma has no idea whether or not to be grateful (they’re alive, they’re here, they found her) or cheated (was it her that just imagined the days? was it the darkness tricking her?). She doesn’t know how to feel about anything, about any of this. Relief should be pouring in but she feels something blocking it.

Oh, right. Guilt.

They didn’t talk about the corpse that’s still feet away from the cell.

Henry is uncharacteristically quiet as he follows behind her, staring at her with a mixture of hope and fear. God, she made her son look at her with fear.

She can’t live like this.

“I should go...change.” Emma states, gesturing to her attire. The corners of Hook’s mouth quirk at this, only if for a moment. “I think I really need to sleep, too, just to process everything.”

Mary Margaret looks almost wounded at her statement. “Are you sure, Emma? We can...”

“I’m fine,” she insists, wanting to be alone (which she’s used to, comfortable with by now) more than anything. Emma thinks the old Emma, the good Emma who didn’t crush the hearts of innocent people, the foolish Emma who still clung on to hope for them to come back to her, for her, would be slapping her across the face for begrudging her the opportunity to be around the family she’d been deprived of for so long.

Mary Margaret only looks at her feet for a moment before trying to brighten up her expression. She fails. “Alright.”

“I’ll leave you to it then, Swan.” Hook tells her, words careful and measured. He takes a step towards her, bowing his head towards her when he would ordinarily be kissing her on the cheek in a goodbye. “You know where to find me.”

He leaves. Her eyes don’t linger on the door.

David is the next one to speak. “Just know that we’re really happy to have you back and that we will help you fight the darkness inside of you. We love you, Emma.”

She’s about to say the words back, but they stick to the inside of her throat. Emma just nods instead, trying not to notice how their faces falls when she does. Emma quickly ducks into the bathroom instead of facing them, like the coward she is.

The hot water feels unnatural on her skin, so used to being almost frozen solid. Emma frowns, feeling herself thaw little by little. Finally satisfied, she tries her best to get her hair out of the painfully tight bun it found itself in. After another relative success, she rubs at her eyebrows to make sure they’re not the odd, white ice blocks they were before. She shampoos, conditions, shaves, and does everything else old Emma would do hoping and praying that the physical transformation will trigger a mental and emotional one.

By the time she gets out of the shower, she looks like the old Emma. Her skin has a more natural, pink hue to it, Her damp hair hangs around her face in waves. Her lips are no longer the blood red extreme they were before and she doesn’t look like she’s been left in a freezer anymore.

She still isn’t Emma Swan, though. At least, she doesn’t feel like her.

Emma tugs on the soft cotton pajamas the old her used to adore and tries to book it to her room as quickly as possibly if only to avoid Mary Margaret and David’s sad looks. Everything there has been left untouched, she notices. Emma looks in her bag, feeling more like an invader into someone else’s belongings than the owner of them. She finds her wallet, a crushed bag of poptarts, and her phone - all looking no worse for wear. Emma plugs her phone into the charger - it’s dead, which figures - absentmindedly, looking around the room to find something that will make some part of her sense of self come back.

It still all looks like the home of a stranger she’s met once, then forgotten.

Her phone beeps from its position on the nightstand to notify her it’s regained enough charge to turn itself back on.

When she picks it up, she’s shocked to see her voice mailbox is full and she has almost 200 missed calls. All of which are from Hook, who should have obviously known she wouldn’t there to answer. Some messages are only seconds long recordings of static and he hangs up right after calling. Others are almost soliloquies with slurred words, begging and pleading with someone who isn’t there to pick up the phone.

_“I just need...I need to hear your voice. I know you won’t get this, Emma, but I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I could’ve saved you. I should’ve saved you. I should have been in your place instead and I’ll never forgive myself for that. I’ve been sitting here with the bloody dagger for hours begging it to bring you back home. Please, love, come back to me. I lo-”_

Emma ends the message before his recorded voice has the opportunity to finish his sentence. She deletes the other messages, too, sitting on her (is it really hers?) bed and wiping away the moisture that had somehow, miraculously ended up coming down in tracks down her face.

She doesn’t know if she should be relieved or horrified that she can still feel. Emma considers it for the entire night, staring at the rafters of the loft instead of sleeping.

 

* * *

 

 

Hook is sitting at the table of the loft when she walks down the stairs in the morning, nursing two mugs. His face lights up when he sees her, Emma wonders idly if he’s reassured by the fact that she looks more like herself, and he wordlessly hands her a mug when she approaches him.

“Where’s Neal?” Emma asks, remembering that she should be asking about him. She hasn’t seen him since she’s been here, hasn’t heard him crying in the night like she remembers he was prone to do before.

Hook answers her easily. “His parents have just gone to pick him up from Belle.”

“Oh,” she observes, drinking the cinnamon cocoa that now tastes too sickeningly sweet. “he must be pretty big now.”

“Aye,” he tells her, noting the way she folds into herself even further as she says it. “the lad has been growing steadily. We make sure to remind him of his big sister as much as possible. Not that he understands us, of course.”

Emma doesn’t know how to reply to that. A beat passes between them without either of them saying anything. She finally breaks the silence.

“I thought you were dead,” she says bleakly, almost boring holes into her mug with her eyes.

“Come again?”

“I thought…” she trails off, frustrated with herself and whatever else is to blame for what happened. “something messed with my mind. I thought a lot more time passed than it did. Over a century, for whatever reason. A big difference from six months.”

“Love,” Hook starts, looking heartbroken on her behalf. She wishes he wouldn’t. “darkness can play tricks on the best of us. I’m sorry we took as long as we did to find you, perhaps if we’d gotten to you sooner it wou-”

“It’s fine, Hook.” she exhales, not really feeling up to ‘what ifs’ at the moment.

He seems bothered by what she’s said, stiffening almost imperceptibly.

“What?” Emma blinks, uncertain to what she’s done wrong.

Hook hesitates for a moment, then decides against saying whatever was at the tip of his tongue. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Hook.” she insists, noting the way he nearly flinches yet again. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

He sighs, rubbing his forehead while he thinks of the best way to reply to her. “It’s just that you keep on calling me Hook, love.”

What was that supposed to mean? That was his name, wasn’t it? Emma has called him that multiple times before without any sort of issue. She contemplates it for a moment, rocking back on her heels. Her face must be a mask of confusion, if the quiet frustration on his is any indication.

“Don’t worry about it, Swan.” he reassures her. The words are hardly a balm for her bewilderment, especially considering he’s beginning to retreat as he says them. “It’s hardly a pressing issue, call me whatever you wish. I should find-”

“Wait,” Emma calls out, looking as awkward as she feels. She’s desperate to figure out what’s wrong with her (well, besides the obvious) and how to fix it before she hurts him even further than she already has. “Killian, come back.”

Her voice cracks on the last word.

“I shouldn’t have said anything, I’m sorry.” he apologizes immediately, taking strides back to her and God - he still won’t touch her. His arms hover peripherally around her, as if trying to protect her from the threat of his departure. She notices they never meet hers and they certainly never envelop her. She was thankful for the space before, but now it feels more suffocating than the alternative.

Emma feels it again, the tug in her gut that tells her she misses who she used to be. She knows he loved her, past tense. Emma isn’t sure about the present, but he must love who she was enough to put up with who she is now in hopes of getting her back.

Despite becoming whoever or whatever she’s become, she still loves him. She doesn’t think he can will himself to really love the version of her that’s killed an innocent person, but she still loves him. That’s why it hurts when he’s inches away and won’t close the gap between them that’s widening every second.

Killian can tell the state she’s in and finally wraps her up in his arms, burrowing his face in her hair. “I’m sorry, love.”

Emma sways a bit in his arms, for once fully returning a hug she’s been given. Sleep made this a little more believable, but even if it really is just a fever dream from a cell she’s desperate to cling to it for as long as she can. “It’s my fault. Everything is my fault.”

Killian shushes her soothingly. “You did nothing wrong, love.”

“I killed that woman.” she presses, the guilt that has been lurking under the surface bubbling over, “She didn’t do anything wrong, but I killed her. I crushed her heart. She’s dead because of _me_.”

She waits for him to tell her that it wasn’t her. That the person who killed her wasn’t really her so she can know for sure that he can’t love this version of her.

He doesn’t.

“Do you know the reason that I reacted the way I did to you calling me Hook again?” he asks her, rocking her in his arms. “You’ve called me that many times before,"

She shakes her head.

“I did a lot of thinking, while you were gone, about how I would be able to help you when I got you back.” Killian swallows a lump in his throat, “If I got you back.”

Emma isn’t sure what to say, but he continues.

“I’ve recently thought that we could split the parts of ourselves into the parts we’re proud of and the parts we aren’t,” he murmurs into her hair and her grip tightens on him just a little bit, “but we can’t. I wanted to be a better man for you, Swan. I swore that if I was one - if I wasn’t Hook - that I’d be able to get you back. I’d be faster. Now, I realize that isn’t the case.  You’ve accepted me holistically for who I am, good and bad. I will always do the same for you. You’re still you, love, just as I’m still Hook. Emma, you know what you’ve done and I have faith in your heart just as you’ve had faith in mine.”

Emma thinks that’s an awful lot of faith to put in someone who just confessed to murder.

“If something goes horribly amiss,” Killian goes on steadily, determined to reassure her as best as he can. “I won’t leave you alone again. I’ll catch you before the darkness does.”

Emma has been sifting through everything from the eyes of a stranger because she feels like a stranger to herself. She’s not the Savior anymore, she’s the opposite of who she was. They can’t coexist in the same space. Emma is too rigid, too cold now to be the person she was before.

But if Killian can accept both parts of herself, maybe she’ll be able to, too.

He unwinds slowly from her arms, head bent to rest against hers, “I never had the opportunity to tell you…”

“Don’t.” Emma says, putting a hand up between them when the words come out harsher than she means them to. She can’t think of the right way to say it how she means it, but- “I mean, just...”

Hook’s face - eyes gazing downwards and jaw clenching - briefly shows his hurt, but he quickly masks it.

Emma shakes her head quickly, forcefully. “That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s alright, love.” he tells her, soft, understanding, and still hurt no matter how much he’s trying to pretend otherwise. He should know better to lie to someone who can spot a liar, but she doesn’t have the strength right now to call him out like she means to. She doesn’t want to lose this, lose him.

Emma doesn’t know how to say that she wants to hear the words but she doesn’t think they’re for her anymore. “Tell me when this is all over.”

Killian accepts this with a nod, softly taking her hand in his. He traces the words - one letter on top of the next - with this pointer finger. Emma squeezes it in return, thinking maybe old, good, foolish Emma wasn’t so foolish about her clinging to hope after all. Maybe she - whoever she really is now, because she doesn’t know if she can believe Killian when he tells her they’re still one and the same - can go back to being old, good, foolish Emma after all. Not today, but one day.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a few weeks later that she demands to go back to the Enchanted Forest. Mary Margaret and David protest the decision wildly at first, but Emma is nothing but determined. She, at least, hasn’t lost the character trait. Emma insists on Killian going with her, too, which may quell their worries (and hers so long as he has a steady grip on the dagger).

Killian doesn’t even ask why she wants to go back. All he does is follow her lead.

Emma ends up right back at the cave, Killian at her heels. It’s surreal, being back here. The place where she spent such a long time alone. She hates this place so much, but she knows she has to come back if she ever wants to move on.

It’s also the site for another moment, she remembers.

“I guess you weren’t so done with me after all.” Emma says, and the joke feels a little too uncomfortable coming out of her mouth.

If it is, Killian doesn’t act like it. “This was the same place, wasn’t it? And I don’t think I could ever be done with you, love.”

Emma snorts before her eyes fall on something else.

The woman’s body - she doesn’t even know her name - must have been there for days rather than weeks once they staged their rescue mission. Emma wonders if she had a family (most people did). If she had a husband, a wife, parents, siblings, or children that Emma robbed her from. Emma doesn’t know how she can find out, but she feels like she at least has to do something. It’s what she came here to do, try to find a way to make up for what she’s done.

“She deserves a proper burial, at least.” Emma manages to get out of her mouth. It hardly makes up for anything, but it’s something.

Killian only responds in assent. “Aye.”

Emma spends hours shoveling by some respectable patch of forest. Killian offers to help (implores her to let him help her), but she makes it clear that this is something that she needs to do alone. Something she has to do without using her magic, too. She killed the woman, the least she can do is dig her a respectable grave.

Once she’s done hours later, all she can do is collapse on her knees on the patch of dirt she’s just finished covering again. Killian doesn’t say anything, for all his verbosity he’s been really good about that as of late, just crouches beside her and runs his hand up and down her back until she’s ready to go back home.

 

* * *

 

She starts to do the things the old Emma would have enjoyed again, at Mary Margaret’s recommendation. Emma gets ice cream with Henry, in her red leather jacket and jeans, listening to him tell her his latest stories (Lancelot said he’d teach me how to be a real knight! We ran into Elsa and she says she misses you and wants to visit! Neal is crawling over everything!) and most of her replies are stilted and her smiles fake. She kisses him on the forehead one day, thinking that maybe now she can be herself, really herself again if she does it.

Belle told her a few days ago that she thinks she has a solution to what plagues Emma, but it failed when she tried it with Rumple. There’s no woosh, no lights, no anything this time. It seems it’s failed again, if her True Love couldn’t break it now. Henry doesn’t ask why she lingers on his forehead in an effort to compose herself before she starts crying in frustration. She’s grateful she has a kid who gets it.

On their future trips out, her smiles and replies become more genuine in spite of that, though.

Mary Margaret and David try to include her as much as possible in the little things, too, given she’s missed more of her little brother’s life than she ever wanted to (even just in those six months). She babysits Neal and starts to realize just how much of her brother’s life she’s missed already. It stings, but she does her best to keep the kid happy and smiling even when she feels like the sky is falling.

Emma goes on dates with Killian, too. They go out for dinner, go sailing (and take Henry with them), and do all the things that normal couples do. He holds her hand and tugs her into his arms and it’s almost enough.

He never kisses her goodnight. She’s both disappointed and grateful for that. She doesn’t know if she’d be able to take the crushing sense of despair of the knowledge that there’s nothing she can do to fix herself again. He doesn’t look like he’d be able to take that knowledge, either. Despite his reassurances, she knows he’d blame himself if it didn’t work.

 

* * *

 

 

They find Merlin, finally. Somehow, Lancelot and Guinevere track him down (mainly Guinevere, Lancelot insists with a little too much adoration in his eyes,) and Emma, David, and Killian have an awkward almost-standoff with him. He speaks in a lot of riddles, about how only light can rid the dark and how the world needed a channel for all the greed and selfishness in order to function properly.

Emma just asks him in a deadpan what he thinks the world is without the Dark One, anyway.

Merlin only shrugs in response, as if it occurred to him but he decided it was too late to change anything. He gives them another convoluted answer, how it was possible to drive out the darkness of the Dark One without it seeking another host only if it is able to be countered with the strongest of light.

“She’s the savior,” David points out, growing more and more frustrated with the wizard the more he talks. “and the product of True Love. Does it get lighter?”

Merlin seems nonplussed. “Acts of True Love for the product of True Love seem fitting, do they not?”

“I kissed Henry on the forehead a few weeks ago,” Emma frowns, thinking something inside of her must be defunct if it failed. “Obviously, it didn’t work. I can still feel the... darkness or whatever inside of me.”

“Well, then, you’re halfway there.” Merlin tells her with nothing but a wink before disappearing.

Emma is completely baffled with the answer. She’s left gaping at the spot that the wizard just vanished from. David stands shock still, in a similar state. Emma doesn’t get the chance to even talk to Killian about what the hell that even meant before his hand is in her hair and his lips are on hers with a whispered _“I love you, Swan"_.

Emma closes her eyes immediately, taking in the feeling after being depraved of it for so long. She threads her fingers in his hair, standing on her tip toes to meet him fully. It feels almost magical to kiss him again, and he about lifts her in his arms with the force of it. She opens her eyes and, okay, maybe it is magical if the burst of light is any indication.

“How was that?” he asks with a grin once his lips finally leave hers. He’s still holding her in place, and she can’t say she minds it. “A fitting True Love’s Kiss for the Savior?”

She smiles in turn, feeling lighter than she has in what feels like forever. “It’ll do.”

David, despite his exaggerated show of looking in the other direction, looks immensely relieved.

 

* * *

 

 

Not long afterwards, she finally gets a place of her own. It’s a steal, really, the small cottage by the water. It’s also kind of a fixer-upper, but Emma is used to fixing things by now. Mary Margaret brings hand-sewn throw pillows and insists on helping her decorate, though Emma has to barter with her about a few ugly bird paintings, David helps her replace the carpet and fix some minor plumbing issues. Henry is just happy he has his own room. And, of course, Killian moves in too. Emma murmurs something about the Jolly getting cold in the winter when she asks him to move in, but he just grins into her kiss in reply to tell her he knows it’s more than that. They move in, together, a few days later and it’s home, the little house.

She feels like herself again, for the most part. She’s still Emma. Killian keeps on insisting she’s always been through all of this. She’s starting to believe him; it’s just now she is free from the bleakness that comes with the having the light snuffed out of her. Emma swears that if not for the people she loves, the people she has to live for (her parents, Henry, him), acting as her light through it all, she would’ve been lost in the dark for good.

Emma wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes, sure she’s back to that cell while she’s grasping for something, someone to hold onto with tears stinging her eyes and lungs desperate for air. Killian just holds her tighter to him and combs his fingers through her hair on those nights, muttering _“I’m here, I’ve got you, and I love you.”_ in her ear.

Sometimes she hears him wake up in the middle of the night, her name on his lips. So, she does the same for him.

It’s enough.

 


End file.
